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About Linda

Homeschooling6

I'm Linda, child of God, happily married to my Sweets, we have six children ages 15, 14, 13 ,12, 11 and a 9yr. old. They keep life fun! I enjoy blogging our days for the children. I usually have two cups of coffee. One in the morning and one while I blog. My favorite colors are brown, baby blue and pink. Hope you enjoy your visit!
And please visit my Lilla Rose store: http://www.lillarose.biz/homeschooling6

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Completed or almost completed Day 18 here at Homeschooling6!

Every year I start the 100 Day of School count down, but I never finish. In the past I have purchased things like the 100th Day Kits. Like this bug one for instance. Believe it or not we wouldn't complete it. Like, how hard is it to put a sticker on the poster and count! Well, for us it didn't get done.

Anyway, this year, I'm determined to finish our 100th Day. I purchased this for math a few years back {of course we haven't used it yet}.

Everyday one of the children add a straw and the correct number. I'll admit, that we are not always doing the 'whole tens' thing, but at least we are keeping it up. I do plan to sit with Brent, Ethan and Lance in a few days to show them the two sets of 10's.

Lance School

Using McRuffy Math (except I couldn't find our counting-strip so I used Saxon's) Lance, is learning about more and less then. I had him put counting bears on the numbers. I bear on the 1, two bears on the 2 and so forth.

For 7, 8, and 9 he used cubes.

Close-up

I would pull two number cards down and ask which is greater or less. I'd also say more or less. Another word I would use it the smaller number.

Once we were done practicing with the number cards, he worked in his workbook. His workbook pages had shapes with two numbers in them. He had to cross out the greater number. It was fun watching him concentrate and use the number cards and counting bears to help him figure it out.

Lance, also completed a lesson using Saxon Math 1. His counting is improving, but you can see he still missed a few. We had to cross off the extra square he colored.

Ethan, using McRuffy Math 1 worked on time.

He had to match the written time with the clocks.

We still need to do Saxon Phonics. Today he'll learn about the suffix 'ing'.

Guess what Annette and Joshua did today? Our first Writing With Ease narration. I'm not sure how consistent we'll be with this. I decided since, I have them during spelling (Saxon Phonics Intervention) I might as well keep them a little longer to work on their narration skills. To complete spelling and Writing With Ease it took 50 minutes. Joshua, did not like that one bit, but tough Twinkies for him.

When we finished our session he asked, "Mom, how long was that?"

Me, "About 50 minutes."

Josh, "That was too long."

Me, "Well, in public school, your cousin Jamie, has seven periods, each lasting about the same amount of time, so be thankful you only sat for 50 minutes. Do you feel thankful?"

Josh, "No."

Me, "How about after lunch you come back for another 50 minute session then. Do you feel thankful now?"

Josh, "Yes." he smiling while answering.

Josh, doesn't like when my teaching sessions are longer then 30 minutes. I don't blame him, but he has to learn that, that's life sometimes. Next time he complains I told him we'll have another session. I'm too nice, I should have given him one today, but I didn't have the energy.

Here is Annette's summary from WWE (Writing With Ease).

{click to enlarge}

I still have to correct her summary, so there are a few misspelled words and such, but I was so excited I just snapped away!

I wanted to add that I know her summary is a bit long. I told her and Josh, that it's suppose to be a brief summary. They need only to write the plot and not all the details. Annette, has trouble keeping things brief. A blogging friend pointed out the importance of keeping the summary short, so I'm going to work with her on this.

Here are some sentences that I dictated to Caleb and Brent, via Phonics Road. I said each word slowly so they could hear each sound and I would give hints like "Why do we hear the /I/ sound." they would answer, "Because there is a silent final 'e'."

Not sure why my picture has a pink tint.

Here is one of Joshua's math pages.

Josh, was suppose to put the equation that he solved in the lines provided below. For instance with the first problem (click the image to enlarge and see) 3x(3x9)= He was suppose to multiply the 3x9 first and write 27x3=81 but instead he wrote 9x3=27. This is what I don't understand because I went over this with him before having him do the worksheet. Lupe, is at lost with this too. My hubby, did say that once things slow down with the apartments he'll sit with Josh, more and help him with his math.

I know I have said this over and over, but I love teaching phonics now!!! I feel bad writing this because some day my children will read this and my four older are going to think, 'What!'. It's not that I didn't enjoy teaching my older children phonics but for me it was so hard. I couldn't find the right fit. Now my oldest is in 7th grade and reading well (thank you Jesus!) but struggles with spelling.
My Annette, 5th grade is a great reader and speller but will struggle with an unknown word. The two middle kiddos Caleb and Brent, 3rd and 4th grade, take forever to read a paragraph of Little House in the Big Woods.

Because my three boys 'struggle' a bit with reading and I felt like a fish out of water, flip-flopping around, well, it just was (is) not as fun. With Ethan using Saxon Phonics, it's fun, enjoyable. It's scripted, I know where I'm going with it. We do one lesson a day. I don't know, maybe it's because I have finally settled down with curriculum hopping and buying.

Okay, now onto Day 17!

First, the weather is so nice right now. High 70's, low 80's. Because of our beautiful weather, it made it a bit harder to get school done, but we did most of it.

I'll start with Ethan, because I'm having a blast teaching my little guy. He completed Saxon Phonics Lesson 31. This was a REALLY hard lesson for Ethan, and I knew it would be. He has a hard time with the /th/ sound. You should see how cute he looks trying to make the unvoiced /th/ sound as in thimble, and the voiced /th/ as in feather. Instead of hanging around with this lesson, trying to get him to say it correctly, we will just move on. I know he'll eventually get it. I'll keep practicing with him.
He learned how to code the voiced /th/ sound. He is suppose to put a line through the 'th' to show it's voiced.
Today, he got pretty colorful with his work. It's probably because I've been asking the children to use color this year. We got all these nice color pencil, crayons and such.

Look how much fun he is having!﻿

Here he is correcting his spelling test (4).

Close-up of his spelling sound sheet.

Close-up of his spelling test

Close-up of his spelling worksheet. There is also a homework worksheet, but we only use them if he needs to reinforce or review something.

Ethan, hasn't done math yet.

Caleb and Brent, are working with adding 238+165. They can do this easily but I wanted them to see the hundreds, tens, ones. We did the addition problem step-by-step renaming, exchanging ten ones for a ten bar and such. We do this at least a few times a year.

The children having P.E. time.

Lance School

Ethan, still needs to finish math. Lance, will do math after nap.

Annette and Josh, completed Saxon Phonics Intervention as well as their other subjects.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Here is Ethan, counting from 101 to 200 using McRuffy Math.

Making puzzles using Tangrams also from McRuffy Math.

Ethan, completed an assessment and did pretty good. He missed one sight word 'who'. He said, "That is a very hard word to remember." and I agree. Below we were playing a matching game. Ethan and I had to read the commands, if they matched we had to act them out.

Caleb and Brent, completed math. We still need to do Phonics Road.

Josh, is almost done with all his school. Annette, I need to check and see where she is at.

Ethan, is done and Lance, will have his school time after dinner.

That's about it for now. I'm off to take a nap.

Editing this post at 8:10 p.m. to add a picture of what Lance, did for math this evening.
Saxon Math 1, lesson 3

Yesterday was Lupe's birthday. He had to work from sun-up to sun-down, so we weren't able to make him a cake and sing Happy Birthday. By the time he got home the children were all in bed. I was so tired myself that I could barely stay awake. I ended up going to bed at midnight and you know what my sweet hubby did? The dishes. I had done the dishes twice yesterday (we have no dishwasher) and was too tired to do the last sink of dishes (I had stayed up the night before until 2:00a.m.). This morning when I walked in the kitchen, all the dishes were washed. I just thought that was the sweetest thing.

Monday, September 27, 2010

Today Lance, used linking cubes. We built towers up to five.

After he colored the correct amount of squares, he had to circle one row and draw that many animals.

He is drawing a donkey.

We didn't get math in during the day, so after supper he completed a lesson. He's still using McRuffy Math K. A friend gave me her Saxon Math 1 teacher manual, so I thought we could try it along with McRuffy. I think the Meeting Book will be lots of fun. Lance, won't start the Meeting Book until October though. I figure with September almost over, we might as well wait.

It all started out with Brent, wanting to start a little camp fire out in the driveway. Me, not being an outdoors kind of gal, I said, we should wait until dad gets home. The only problem, is dad won't be home until after the kids are in bed.

Finally, I agreed to a fire in the pit. Sounds nice and safe.

Brent, looked around the yard for some 'tinder' and such to start the fire. He eventually got it going.﻿

Josh, joining in on the fun. I told the kiddos that we still need to get some school done. Notice, Joshua's ax hanging out of his schoolbag.

Josh, set up camp and is studying. What a good boy.

Lupe, knows how much the outdoors means to the boys. Friday, he came home with a mosquito netting, so the boys (and Annette) can camp outside without the mosquitoes eating them alive.

Enjoying the fire. It was chilly out this morning.

Aw, what the heck, lets start a campfire. I helped the children, take some of the embers from the dying fire and transferred it to the backyard campsite. Hey, this is real life learning.

They got the fire going.

Lets take it a little further and add a make-shift stove. Brent, found a piece of an old dvd player, that we let the boys take apart. He is using it as a stove (think Man, Women, Wild). Joshua and I set up the sticks to hold his water. Josh, wanted some boiling water for his tea.

After an hour of trying to get the fire to heat a can of beans (think cowboys), Annette, finally sat down and ate cold beans. She was so hungry.

All six of them.

It was a lot of fun. I was out there the whole time watching or helping. We did get some school in, but at the same time they were learning team work.

Last time the children camped out in the backyard, they came in about 1:00 a.m. in the morning and looked liked this.

These are actually a week old now.

Caleb, had at least a dozen on his legs. Annette, and Josh, didn't get as much (thank goodness).

Here, is a picture of us getting school done while we are day camping.

Caleb and Brent, took a math test. Joshua & Annette, actually finished all their school work (except spelling, Saxon Phonics Intervention).